To Observe in Silence
by Midwinter's-Night-Dream-86
Summary: The Aldmeri Dominion occupies Skingrad even as their armies sack the Imperial City, but not everyone in the Dominion is a soldier or officer. Calvare is little more than a servant, always cleaning, always working, but he sees, and his twisted mind turns even the best things to darkness. Oneshot. Complete. R&R!


_**To Observe in Silence**_

 _c. 4E174 — Skingrad, Cyrodiil_

The first thing one noticed in the morning was the silence. How cold it was, how deafening, and to an Altmer, it seemed almost as if death itself hovered over everything. It wasn't the sweet sort of quiet that greeted one in the high mountains of Cloudrest, nor the calming silence down along the coasts, just out of earshot of the waves. This was an all consuming, drumming in the ears; it pushed against everything, trying to make noise in the quiet without success, save for the thundering of one's heart.

Despite this, he relished the early morning tranquility (as he called it), because soon, he knew, the screaming would start, and would not cease again until late into the evening when the interrogators had had their fun.

Such was the life of a soldier in Aldmeri Dominion in Cyrodiil during the war.

Truthfully, he wasn't really a proper member of the Dominion. He merely cleaned up the chambers and disposed of any remains that might be left after a session, but still, he took pride in his work. Torching and incinerating the bodies of their war prisoners was his favorite work activity. It's why he accepted the job when they deemed him unfit for a Justiciar position!

Once the silence became too much for his ears, he arose from his bed and went to the wash basin. His chamber was small, little more than a broom closet; it had once been a servants room before they'd taken over the castle, meant for two, but ever since his bunkmate had found himself on the receiving end of one of the High Interrogator's ill moods, he'd found himself getting on comfortably there by himself.

After cleaning his face with water from the basin and combing and tying back his hair, he went and shrugged his plain black robes on over his head, letting them fall across his chest and sleep pants and straightening them when they came down crooked, and then he pulled on his scuffed boots and tied off the laces. His uniform lacked the golden fastenings and finishings that those of the interrogators and Justiciars possessed, but it was all the better for blending into the shadows, like an unseen force of—

Bang! "Calvare! Have you arisen yet? Elenwen wants you in the upper chambers this morning!"

Calvare, the highly annoyed Altmer within the small room, glowered at the door. "Yes, Arandil, I am up." He stepped forward and pulled the door open, causing the taller elf to teeter forward once his prop was gone. "And I am dressed, as you can see."

Arandil looked at him with scrutiny. "Ah, yes, I see," he nodded.

Calvare rolled his eyes in disgust before pushing past the young Under Justiciar. If the High Interrogator wanted him in the upper chambers, that meant he was going to have a slow morning scrubbing walls and floors while her prized apprentice practiced breaking bones, only to heal them, and then repeat. It was monotonous work, really, a work he found himself stuck with often, but at least the apprentice afforded him a good view while he worked.

As he walked, he became increasingly aware of Arandil's presence behind him. After several minutes of his irksome presence, he rounded on the younger elf. "What are you following me for?"

Arandil blinked at him innocently. "The turn for the great hall is up ahead. I want to catch the tail end of breakfast."

Oh. "As you were, then."

He received a snort in reply. "Because you are in charge of me, of course, Cal."

He ground his teeth together. "Do not call me that," he hissed.

Arandil chuckled, but held his hands up in surrender. "I forgot, you prefer to be called Cally Woggle."

Keep walking, Calvare told himself. Keep walking and ignore the irksome, disrespectful elfling with his filthy mouth and paltry remarks. Keep walking, and there would be the apprentice's slight figure, gleaming with sweat and magic, to observe from the shadows, to serve as a reward for not strangling the moronic mer behind him.

"You know she might kill you."

"What?" Calvare started, and realized that he'd zoned out. He glanced back at Arandil. Kill him? Who? Her...?

"Elenwen might kill you if you do not hurry," the younger mer amended.

The darker Altmer stared at the Justiciar for a solid minute before nodding slowly and creeping away down the shadowed corridor.

"By Arkay, but he is an odd fellow," Arandil muttered, shaking his head in puzzlement.

Calvare hurried along the passage, passed the turns to the private quarters that once belonged to the nobles that had made their home in those halls before the war, and through the great doors that led to the upper chambers of the dungeons, which the High Interrogator usually had set aside for instruction and practice and, on occasion, her own special cases.

It didn't take him long at all to reach the largest of the rooms in use, having stopped only long enough to collect his usual equipment for the care of that particular area. Upon entering, he expected to find the form of his favorite Justiciar bent over the incapacitated body of some Imperial or Nord as she worked used the torture tool in conjecture with the Restoration school, looking for ways to prolong the pain of her victims. He loved it especially when she would lean over to study a specimen more closely; it did wonders for his imagination.

Unfortunately, the apprentice was not in the room, nor was there a prisoner strapped to a rack or table.

In fact, the room was empty, aside from him.

Grumbling, Calvare dragged his bucket over and placed it hard on the floor, sending water sloshing about over the edges. He took a coarsely haired brush, then, and with little preparation, began to scrub at the base of the nearest wall.

His morning had not started out well, and it appeared as if it would continue on its southward course, but there was still time for her to come in, dragging a sobbing human behind her, and set about her work.

And so, he waited, and while he waited, he scrubbed, scraped, and wiped down the walls and the stone floor tiles. The amount of blood and other, unknown liquids and substances that managed to encrust the stonework so often, so frequently was a little disheartening, making the job of cleaning it even more so.

The longer he worked, the redder the skin of his hands became, rubbed raw by the stones. So engrossed was he in the horribly monotonous work that when the door finally creaked open and a slight figure crept in, he did not notice them. They payed him no mind, moving instead toward the long table where several different tools were kept for the use of the torturers and interrogators. From this was selected a particularly vicious looking dagger; slender and at least a foot in length, it glimmered wickedly in the low torchlight, sparkling as it was waved back and forth.

Then the hand that held it slipped, and the owner of the hand let out a curse.

Calvare started, and turned to find the apprentice crouched down, groping about around the table for the weapon in the semi darkness. He stared as she bent further down, reached under the table and grabbed at her query, before lifting it up with a sigh of relief. She stood up, and Calvare's eyes followed her frame as she rose to her full height, only scant inches shorter than most of the other High Elven woman back in the Isles. He'd heard a few of the off duty Justiciars and soldiers in the barracks complain that she was too Breton like in her appearance, yet he found her willowy looks more appealing than the stick like thinness and small curves possessed by most Altmer women.

"Vilya," he breathed, unconsciously reaching toward the redheaded Altmer. His voice was so low in that moment that he had trouble hearing himself, but the apprentice's back tensed, and he knew she had very well heard him when she turned around and stared at him.

During the long hours spent cleaning up after the Thalmor, Calvare had devoted much of his time to the thought of her, imagining her frigidly blue eyes turning to him and dissolving into boiling pools with want for him, but the icy chill that seemed to seep from her gaze made him almost reconsider his next course of action.

There was no one, decided reason on why he had been denied the position of Justiciar, but if he were made to pick one, it would be his brash and forward behavior, and his tendency to act without forethought.

Of course, that line of thought went up in smoke almost as immediately as it had been sprung; he squashed it down and glided across the floor to the irritable apprentice, to Oblivion with the consequences. "Vilya," he greeted her in a deep, almost needy voice.

Despite his overt fascination with her, he was extremely surprised when she suddenly launched herself at him, wrapped her limbs around his body, and attached her face to his with a force that sent him nearly reeling. The weapon she'd had in her possession fell away and was forgotten as the two engaged in a brief battle for dominance before Calvare shoved the apprentice's back against the closest wall and pushed himself into her warm and very inviting body, hiking up the skirt of her black robe and pulling both of her legs up around his waist as he did so.

She smelled of electricity and death and he found it intoxicating. He tugged at the silk band that held up her dark red hair and hairpins and curls went flying around them, and a new smell, the sweet scent of roses and of ice, washed over him even as he drew her lower lip between his teeth and began to grind into it with his canines, eliciting a muffled cry from the smaller elf that was soon lost entirely as his tongue swept in over hers.

He felt her hands ghost over his sides, his back, and shoulders, trailing up and up until they tangled themselves in the black curls that were too short to be held back by his own hair tie. He leaned into her, moving from her mouth to the soft, golden skin beneath her ear, and he pressed his lips and teeth there hungrily. The apprentice's legs, clad in the dark, standard issue leather pants of the Justiciars, squeezed him around the middle and he closed his eyes and bit down on the shell of her delicate ear.

As he did so, he became increasingly aware of a sharp throbbing in the side of his head, well away from where the apprentice's hands were tangled in his hair. He frowned, absently swirling his tongue over the other elf's ear, but the taste of rosewater and sweat retreated, leaving behind a dusty, metallic flavor that quickly prompted him to move away in confusion and slight disgust. He blinked once, and the warm body around his disappeared almost instantly, leaving his arms empty and cold. He blinked again and he was no longer standing, but pressed down against something hard and uncomfortable.

And then Calvare opened his eyes properly, and realized that he was sprawled out on the floors of the large and empty torture chamber — which he had, of yet, to finish cleaning — and he found himself utterly alone.

He sat up and rubbed at the side of his head, reeling back in the next moment when the throbbing returned with a sharp intensity that made him feel ill. He peered down at his hand, only to find the already raw skin tinged darker with blood.

"By Auri-El..." he hissed, scrambling about sluggishly in his pockets for a clean cloth. Finding one, he pressed it gingerly to the side of his head, and then made an attempt to calm his erratic breathing.

It had been a dream. All of it — her touch, her kiss, the scent of her hair and the feel of her body against his. He could surmise what happened easily: she had thought he was going to assault her, and so lashed out. A mere head wound was better than what Elenwen would have done, had she been there, but still...he could not recall doing anything more than saying her name...

With an aggravated sigh, he slowly got back to his feet, and went back to cleaning the stonework.

He did not notice the missing knife or silk hairband hidden off in the shadows beneath the table.

He worked at the walls, then the floors, for a time, pulling out gross amounts of dust, grime, and other unsavory things from the cracks and crevices that always made their way in to the dark places between each, once weekly cleaning. It was only when the door banged open and the High Interrogator and two run-of-the-mill Aldmeri soldiers came in, dragging a decrepit looking Redguard that he looked up again from his work.

A sudden terror gripped Calvare, then, at the sight of the senior officer, but her eyes seemed to pass over him in favor of examining the different racks around the room. She studied them closely before directing the Dominion soldiers to string their prisoner up on a particularly wicked looking device on the far wall. Calvare shuddered in delight at the sight of it; it stretched its victims into such interesting shapes, which only made their bodies contort further when they were writhing under their captor's lightning. It was his favorite.

But even as he watched them fasten in the swearing Redguard, Elenwen rounded on him with such a fury that he nearly fell back again on his rear. "You, Calvare," she hissed. "Go to the holding cells and clean out the waste there. I will summon you when we are done here and you will then finish this room — including the racks!"

It was very hard for him to hold in a grumble of complaint, but, with a forced, "Yes, ma'am," Calvare gathered his rags, his brushes, and hefted up his bucket, then left, just as the screaming started.

Blast Elenwen! She was causing him to have to miss out on one of his favorite parts of working in the torture chamber!

Slowly, so as not to slosh water on to the floors and cause another mess he'd have to clean up, the Altmer carted his supplies down several hallways to the holding cells, the lovely place where the Dominion kept the prisoners too important to simply be held in the old count's dungeons. Upon reaching the hallway, lined on both sides with numerous iron doors adorned only with a single barred window at eye level for lighting and a slot at the bottom for the plate of rations each prisoner received in the evening, he found each door either opened, or unlocked. Not that he had expected much different, being sent specifically to clean them, after all, but the fact that there was no one there for him to torment as he worked chafed at his already bruised ego.

Would anything ever go his way?

With a deep sigh, Calvare set about entering each cell and began to scrub, noting in each which prisoner was held there and which had been recently, or would be soon occupied (he did keep up with much of the gossip on the matter of the prisoners, as he was usually the one who removed the corpses when they became inconvenient). Without entertainment or, at least, some form of distraction, cleaning the cells was just as, if not more so, dull a task as cleaning the torture chamber had been. At least he'd had been able to see his dear apprentice for a moment while there! Down here, there was no one but him, and possibly the rats, because everyone held on the corridor was either in interrogation, torture, or dead.

Funny how the Dominion had a cycle like that for their prisoners. Torture, interrogate, torture, repeat, then die.

There were Redguards there, brought to Skingrad from as far away as the front lines in Hammerfell, along with confusing spy reports (that he only knew about from the one time he'd been to tidy the governor's office before they'd moved him to dungeon duty) that gave conflicting information from Lady Arannelya on the exact state of the movements of the legions of Decianus. Nords and Imperials made up the bulk of the prisoners, however, with few Bretons and fewer elves who stood on the wrong side of the Aldmeri Dominion; orcs, mostly, but the occasional Bosmer and rare Dunmer and even a handful of Altmer heritics had been brought through, though those had been quickly killed. There had been the one Khajiit brought in, but no Argonian had been held there, at least not by the Dominion. As he worked, Calvare's mind wandered and he wondered just what the lizard men of Argonia were doing, sequestered as they were in their swamps, away from the wars of men and mer.

The Redguard held in the torture chamber under Elenwen's watch must have been a prisoner from the Hammerfell line, brought through Colovia specifically to face the High Interrogator, he mused. He was genuinely surprised that the apprentice had not run off to her mistress to spill to her her own version of their brief interaction, and yet...Vilya had never struck him as one to stand for such incorrect behavior, being the perfect model of the up and coming Justiciar and officer that made the face of the Aldmeri Dominion, but, to tell would be to admit, to some capacity, that she had stolen a dagger—

Calvare cut himself off.

She had stolen a dagger, knife — some sort of torture tool — and those were meant to remain in their assigned room at all times. And she had taken it out.

His hand stilled its vigorous movement, allowing water to drip drop to the straw strewn floor. The apprentice had stolen one of the tools from Elenwen's set, and Elenwen was even now in that very torture room, and she never missed anything, which meant she would likely notice it was gone and believe that he had it, because she would never assume her apprentice would steal from her like a common criminal, and that would be the end of it. Of him.

Calvare's heart hammered in his chest, and he sat back on his heels, ceasing his work entirely. Think, think, think! he ordered himself. The apprentice had entered the room. She went to the table, and that was when he noticed her. And then...he thought he'd been hallucinating. He had to have been, because she kissed him, and he shoved her against the wall. Their tongues were everywhere, and their hands were in each other's hair, and that all had to have been a dream.

He opened and closed his hand, as if pulling at a knot or a tie or a ribbon. Calvare paused, a hasty idea and a shadow of a plan tumbling together in his mind. The dark haired Altmer nodded to himself, and went back to the task before him. Even as his hands held to the coarse brush with which he scrubbed the stonework, he could almost feel the ghost texture of silk slither between each finger, quickly replaced by soft locks of deep red hair colored like the dried blood he scraped from the stones everyday. Either he had knocked his head when she'd struck him, inadvertently condemning him to the High Interrogator's ire, or his dream had been a half forgotten reality, and he would find her hair ribbon on the floor, and he would show it to them when they came to question him. That would be his salvation, for Elenwen, at least, would recognize the pale blue silk stitched with lavender down the middle.

But thought of presenting the ribbon, the only saving evidence in the crime, to Elenwen made his heart grow cold, for it was a flimsy plea in his favor. She could deny it, accuse him of taking that, too, or, as he suspected, it could be a fictional item, conjured by his mind to add reality to his daydream and to give assurance in this nightmare he ventured toward.

He swallowed thickly, and felt quite unsure of anything. For all he knew, the apprentice had been told to take it out, and in any case, she'd likely already returned it, or soon would. He had nothing to the worry over, really. Just anxiety and stress. That was all.

He hoped that was all.

Pushing the matter into the back of his mind, Clavare went about his job, and within two hours, all the cells were straightened out and orderly. Most of them appeared to be in wait for their next hostage, and a part of him was eager to see what new sort of misery the next batch of prisoners would experience.

Not long before he finished, his stomach growled, and Calvare remembered, rather uncomfortably, how he'd skipped out of breakfast because of Arandil's annoying personality. Even if he were on the brink of starvation, that imbecile would make a dying man lose his appetite. He debated briefly on whether or not he should venture to the great hall to see what scraps were left from lunch — for, he reckoned, it had to be approaching two in the afternoon (which meant he'd been out on the floor longer than he had at first thought) and lunch was served at half passed twelve on the dot everyday. However, he soon decided against it. First dinner would be served at half passed five and the second at seven, so if he held out a while more, he'd soon be able to sit down to the light feast that was laid out by the Breton cooks brought in from the city proper.

The dirty sludge in his bucket was thrown out and replaced with clear water. He scraped globs of matted dirt and straw out of his scrub brush and retrieved a freshly laundered cloth from a supply closet. It would do him well not to test Elenwen or her apprentice anymore than they had been already.

He crept quietly back back up to the torture chamber, new supplies in hand as he slipped through the shadows. Was it too quiet in the halls? It was after two, so most were in meetings, training, or interrogation, or something, but the silence seemed eery to him. It crawled across his skin, pricking and prodding at its every half inch; he shuddered violently, and set his bucket down quickly in an effort to compose himself before he spilled it everywhere. He braced his back against the wall, shivering, and glanced up and down the corridor, lit here and there with bracketed torches, but, for the most part, overrun with uncomfortable shadows. Anything could come from the darkness: rats, soldiers dragging a prisoner away, a Justiciar...soldiers coming to drag him away...

Calvare lifted his bucket back up and hurried along his course, unwilling to stand still for too long lest Dominion soldiers did suddenly start searching for him. They would likely think to look in the upper torture chamber first, but, he reasoned, the sooner he was able to figure out if kissing the apprentice had been a dream or some strange reality, and the sooner he knew if a torture tool was really missing so he'd know whether to flee from Skingrad or to continue on with his work — the better.

Like all the other corridors, the upper halls were seemingly deserted. Not a sound came from the chamber as he approached the door, and he almost turned and left, but, steeling himself, he grasped the knob and yanked the door open, preparing himself — only to find an empty room and his previously clean floor splattered with drying blood.

It seemed the High Interrogator was done with her Redguard. Nevermind that she forgot to send for him when she had finished her session; it was a common enough occurrence and he was used to it. And now, he felt better for it, as well.

He slipped in, shutting the door softly behind him, and, passing over the rust red puddles, he peered over the contents of the table. Just as he had feared, a long, particularly wicked knife of which he knew Elenwen to be fond was absent from amongst the hoard of other cruel and twisted pieces. Unease mounted in his stomach, and he then began to search the shadows and corners for the phantom hair ribbon. Several long moments passed as he went about his task in a tense silence; nothing but dust and other, unidentifiable things filled the corners, and the dark spaces hid only coils of heavy chains not yet returned to their hooks above the table—

The table. If he recalled correctly, they had been next to the table that housed the troublesome tools in the first place.

Hurrying back over, he fell to his knees and began feeling about frantically for the length of silk. His heart hammered in his chest the longer he lay there, his fingers finding nothing but grit covered stones. And then, quite suddenly, his hand brushed something cool and soft, and so his fingers shot out, and grabbed at this new object, before bringing them out and holding out the ribbon, yes, the very ribbon he'd sought! (As if someone else had left a ribbon there, too.)

"Bloody Daedroth," he cursed. He had actually snogged the apprentice, and with her hair ribbon in hand, he felt quite pleased with himself.

His pleasure was cut short, however, by the scrape of the knob mechanisms, and without thought, Calvare dropped the ribbon and shot into the darkness beneath the table, and hid there. He was just settled when the door swept open and in came, to his great surprise and confusion, Arandil and Vilya, together, of all mer and men.

"It seems she's finished with this round of sadistic playtime," Arandil noted, glancing around the apparently empty room. "I don't know why we didn't meet in the barracks like we'd agreed."

Vilya looked uninterested in any of Arandil's odd comments, Calvare noted. He also noticed that her hair hung loose about her shoulders in a curling rosy cloud, free from the restraint of her missing ribbon. From the inside of her robe, she pulled out the knife, no, it was a dagger, he reminded himself. Knives had one edge, daggers two. "You told me you had information," she said, her Daggerfall accent a honey drenched sound compared to the high, sweet accent of Alinor. Odd, he thought, he'd never noticed the similar twang Arandil seemed to share with her.

Arandil waved her and her slightly cross expression away. "There's a secret passage from the first cell in the third level corridor. All you have to do to open the panel is press in the thirteenth brick up and three across from the right corner, and pull out the ones above and below it." He eyed the dagger for a moment, and Calvare almost thought she was threatening him with it (then why use that and not her own, specially issued weapon?), when he realized with a jolt that this was a trade. "It leads to the old count's second study. From there, another passage triggered by a torch bracket beside the mantle should open from behind one of the bookshelves. That will lead down to the sewers, and those let out just outside the city. From there, it's a matter of getting through the wilderness."

Vilya nodded, absorbing this information, and Calvare realized that she intended to leave, to run away from the Dominion stronghold in Skingrad. He nearly bolted from under the table, to stop her, to tell Elenwen, to strangle Arandil, but there were two of them, and she had that dagger, and he'd already been beaten by her once today.

Speaking of which... "Daedric ebony?" Arandil asked, examining the twisted weapon with interest.

Vilya nodded. "She got the set from the old Mages Guildhall in Cloudrest, or so I've heard."

"Of course," huffed Arandil, with a shake of his head.

"You won't be discovered?" the redhead asked in...concern? Calvare's skin crawled.

"I'm being sent to Cheydinhal to work under Lord Amroth at the end of the week. They'll never connect the theft with me, if our plans hold. You, on the other hand..."

"I'll be long gone," Vilya said shortly. She handed the Daedric dagger to the other Justiciar. "Good luck."

"You're the one who'll need it," Arandil frowned. He slipped the dagger into his robes as Vilya examined the floor. Calvare pressed himself back against the wall when he realized that she was searching for her ribbon. His hand clenched, and he remembered that he'd dropped it when he'd gone to hide. He held his breath as Vilya stepped closer to the table, and he almost sighed aloud with relief when she stopped short still some feet away to crouch down and pick up the discarded piece. He only just restrained himself.

"I needed to find this before I left," was her simple explanation, as she stood back up.

Arandil didn't say anything, but even away from his previous vantage point, he imagined the brunette mer nodding. There was a rustle, and Calvare peaked out to find the two Justiciars hugging each other. His blood ran cold.

"I don't know what you're planning, Lea, but be careful," Arandil advised her, his arms around her waist.

"Of course, Bane," she whispered back, just audible, as she clung to the taller mer. Calvare caught a glimpse of her crystal blue eyes, rare amongst the Altmer, glistening with unshed tears before she separated from Arandil and left the room.

Arandil stood there for a long moment, and Calvare held his breath, fearful all of a sudden of being caught. To his great surprise and, admittedly, greater relief, the under Justiciar left the room in silence. Calvare waited a few, tense minutes, but neither Altmer appeared again, and at last he slipped out from under the table and began to brush of the dust almost immediately. And then almost stopped, because the dagger was gone and his evidence was gone, but Arandil had it. Arandil, the irksome bane of his existence, had the stolen dagger and now he could get rid of that mer forever.

But first, he had to finish this room, and before dinner time, he thought, spying his cloths, brush, and bucket in their own hiding place behind the door.

Nearly three hours later, bone tired, covered in grime, and starving beyond reason, Calvare drug himself from the upper chambers, away from the dungeons complex, and toward the great hall. If he hurried, he would be able to catch Elenwen before she sat to her meal and he would be able to tell her of Arandil's theft (he still debated on whether or not to tell her of Vilya's part in it).

As he neared the great hall and joined the groups of Altmer heading in that direction, he became increasingly aware of several Justiciars, soldiers, and other people eyeing him as they walked. He glanced down at the state of his robes, and, finding them unbearably stained and filthy, decided that was the cause, and hurried along and bolted through the open doors.

And then he skid to a halt, for there stood Elenwen, with Arandil, and in her hand she held—

"No," he gasped out, but it came out more as a high-pitched "ooo."

"Calvare of Skywatch, you are under arrest for crimes against the Aldmeri Dominion and hereafter shall be made an example of to those who wish to defy us," the High Interrogator said, her voice high and clear.

Calvare felt cold.

"No, no," he tried again. He pointed at the passive Arandil. "It was him, and, and..."

Dominion soldiers came up and grabbed him by the arms, and all the fight left him because in that moment he knew, this was his end.

Elenwen turned to another golden armored Altmer. "Find her," she ordered lowly in a voice that left no doubt who "her" was, and Calvare instantly wondered, despite himself, just what the — former? — apprentice had done. He looked over at Arandil, and for a moment, just one, he imagined a look of fear, or worry, or something like that on his face, but in the next second it was gone, and the brunette was blankfaced once more.

As he was led away, Calvare stared at Elenwen, with her pointy, cold face, and at Arandil, with his dead expression, and he knew what had happened. The Under Justiciar had framed him for the theft in an attempt to distract them whatever the Oblivion Vilya had done, but it appeared as if the High Interrogator was more adept at handling multiple crises at once than the two had apparently anticipated.

Facing, as he was, incarceration, torture, and possibly his own death, he found himself praying to the Aedra that she would escape successfully as she'd apparently planned, even if it only meant that he could kill her himself, later, if he hadn't been executed before he got the chance, that is. Her and Arandil. But first he would kiss her again, and perhaps do more, and he would force her lover, or whatever that imbecile was to her, to watch.

Anyone who crossed the _Aldmeri_ Dominion was made an example, but anyone who crossed him faced something far worse.

.*.*.

 **Author's Note —** _This was my entry for The-Bards-College's single entry summer contest, and, well... :) For context into what Vilya is doing, read The RoseCloak Collection's Storm Breaker and Cleansing Rose chapters. Well, this was fun, because between this and Infamy's Daughter and some other things playing songs in my head, I've studied a lot on the Great War period of the Fourth Era, so I like to think that I know what I'm talking about here. If anyone is curious, Arandil is Erbane, Leara/Vilya's cousin, who you can read about alongside a whole how of characters in Tamriel Tidbits._

 _Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Please review and tell me what you think! It does mean the world when someone gives feedback on a writer or artist's work. Goodness knows I've seen a million posts about people going on about it._

 _Have a lovely day, dear reader._


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